


Last One Standing

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: First Time, Lady and the Tiger ending, M/M, leaving the group
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-01-03
Updated: 2003-01-03
Packaged: 2017-11-23 11:49:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/621803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The word love no longer feels out of place in his mouth, but he can't seem to speak it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last One Standing

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Bystander zine project by [X](http://archiveofourown.org/users/x_art); the inspirational art piece can be seen at her site, [X Art](http://www.tenebris.org/x__art/) and at the end of the story.

The noise from the saloon grows as more people fill the room; it's nearly time for the mid-day meal. Chris is overwhelmed by it and wants to shut his eyes and ears. At least that's what he tells himself, because noise is easier to blame than the fear of what he'll lose. Standing next to him at the bar, Vin drinks the last of his coffee and says "Time I was on my way. Past time, I reckon." Chris nods but doesn't look directly at him; instead catches his eye in the mirror.

He wants to ask: Will you remember me? Us? Will you come back if you can? Will you forget what happened here? But he can only search behind Vin's eyes, and they don't answer the unasked questions. He shoves his glass of whiskey towards Vin, who takes it. Lets his knuckles slide discreetly and tenderly against Chris's own. He looks sharply up at Buck standing near the corner of the bar to see if he notices this, but Buck is busy sweeping the room with his gaze and winking at the girls.

"Will you remember us?" Chris asks finally, as if the words were yanked out of him, head dropped.

Vin turns fully to him and grins. "Siempre, amigo." But when Chris looks at him, he sees such regret and longing there as to seize his lungs, and finds a look that says, "come with me." But Vin won't ask again. He is not the kind to ask a second time.

It was just like this when Vin announced he was going, the same kind of day, same people mostly. A regular day that flipped the world over and crashed it down around him. Ezra, sitting in the same spot he sits now, had just finished reading Jock Steele's dime novel to them, and as he closed the pages, laughing at JD's preening and Buck's smug vanity, Vin slid his chair back and said "Reckon it's time I got back to Tascosa. Anyone reads this, they'll be seeing a bag of silver dollars aside my name." He'd nodded and laughed bitterly, then tipped his hat. "Gents."

They'd sat there, breathlessly stunned, all of them -- even Ezra -- speechless. Because it was true, Vin's story was out, and he would be hunted. Before, Chris had offered to ride with him back there and clear his name, offered when they hadn't even known each other but a few days. Now he couldn't go. Closer than ever to finding who hired Fowler to kill his family, finally seeing a trail to chase, however indistinct. He and Vin were now driven by different quests, and Chris had to honor this one. If he didn't, he thought in some strange way he might cease to exist, as if that was all that held him together inside this fragile human skin.

Later that night, when Vin had not turned up again at the saloon as expected, Chris had gone to find him at the rooming house, packing his few belongings into saddle bags. Chris wondered what he'd been doing alone all this time. He'd entered the room quietly, uninvited, Vin barely acknowledging him. Sat on the bed, hands on his thighs.

"I can't come with you this time."

"I know."

"Not sayin' I don't want to. But... I'm closer now than I've ever been. We have a trail, people Fowler knew, places he went. If I leave it..."

"Chris," Vin had said quietly. Put his bag aside, turned, looked down at Chris's face. "I know that. Be helping you find them all if I could. But now... It ain't his fault, he didn't mean to, but he done gave me away to them."

Closing his eyes, Chris had said, "Can't bear the notion of you there alone. You could get hanged without someone to watch your back." His voice cracked on the word hanged, and he clasped his hands together, twisting. He hadn't felt like this in years, so helpless and small.

"Won't let it happen. Now I got me something to come back for."

"Why now?" Chris had asked, not really to Vin, maybe more to Steele for writing that damn book and messing it all up. If he didn't act fast, he'd lose track of Fowler's trail, and all for the same reasons as Vin was leaving now. Everyone would know, everyone would hear about their stories. If he ever got his hands on Steele, he'd draw and quarter the little toad, slow as he could.

"'Cause we was... what's that word Ezra likes so much? Com... com..."

"Complacent. Yeah. We were, I suppose. No." He'd looked up at Vin finally, saw the sweet, sad smile he'd come to know so well, the one that changed every new day for him, made the world feel like it was worth living in. "We were happy, that's what. Or near as we could be."

Vin stepped in front of him and gently took Chris's hat off. "You thinking I'm figuring you for a coward for not going to Tascosa? I ain't. Nobody planned on this. It just happened, and I been putting it off too long. Was on my own before; I can be on my own again." Then he'd done something Chris had never expected. Wondered about but never hoped. Vin ran his fingers through Chris's hair, held the back of his head, and leaned forward to kiss him. Lips that slid softly across his, tongue slipping warmly inside his mouth, and he opened to it, eager and languid at the same time. Letting it wash over him, swell through him. Vin's mouth on his was like that first drink of whiskey after a dusty trail, hot and tangy and rich. Something anticipated and longed for.

Chris had pulled Vin down to him, above him, not allowing the kiss to be broken. Feeling the heavy weight of him, the sturdy warmth. Such a long time coming. And such a short time to have. Hadn't known he'd been waiting for it until it was right in his face, and wasn't he maybe the stupidest man alive not to have seen it? He'd had a thousand questions, wanted to know how long Vin had felt this way, what could they do now, and on and on, only these questions had already been asked by both of them, by their eyes and mouths and hands. He let himself answer, heard Vin's answers, in the tender caress of clothing whispering across skin, the soft scrape of beard against beard, the sound of bedboards creaking in the quiet twilight.

Vin's rough hands knew him, all the places to touch in all the right ways. Startled by how right it felt when he knew it should be wrong, and how good it was to know this again. Not just empty motions with faceless strangers in lonely rooms or tents, but slow and tender and filled with feeling, building and building to such satisfaction he finally understood what it was to be alive again.

He had stayed with Vin all night and into the morning. Together and apart, met and unmet. Then Vin had said to him, quietly and without implying need, "If you came with me, once we was done, we could find Fowler's trail again, find them who hired him. You almost came once, and you know I'll always follow along with you." Buttoning his shirt, tying his kerchief around his neck. As if it was just another day.

Chris had looked at him helplessly, his heart battling his mind. Love for Vin and the need to be with him warring against the need to bring a killer to justice, the killer of his wife and child. He could not have imagined such a struggle before, when he didn't know what it was like to feel Vin's hands on his body. Either way he lost something. It was a choice with no choice. He'd looked sadly at him, not answering, enough of a reply for Vin who simply nodded and finished gathering his things. Chris had come up behind him and twined his fingers through Vin's. Then Vin had turned, gazing at him as if to remember his face, making a picture in his mind. Chris did the same, hoping this time he could sear it into his mind and not let the memory of someone he loved fade with the loss of connection. He'd trailed his fingertips across Chris's face, along shoulders and chest and arms, making a map of his body with his hands.

They'd slept too late that morning, much too late for someone to be making off on a long journey, but Vin went into the saloon and made his goodbyes, stopping at the bar for coffee and his last conversation with Chris. He would make it on his own time, his own way, he was saying to his friend who chose to stay behind.

And now Chris looks around and everything feels wrong -- too bright, too noisy, too painful. Buck stands guard nearby as if he isn't ready to let Vin go. Chris doesn't know what to do, wants to steer Buck away and take one last moment with Vin alone, but he can't do it without giving it all away. He wonders if everyone can see it on them, tell what they've done, but they act the same, at least on the surface. Even Josiah, who seems the most aware of all of them. No one wants him to leave, but they know he has to follow his own paths.

As Vin finishes Chris's whiskey, he turns and smiles. "Back before you know it." But there's pain in his eyes, pain that probably mirrors Chris's own -- their mutual regret, the choices they've made, the obligations. Roads they chose to walk before they met and now must continue on alone, after stopping just this while to rest.

The word love no longer feels out of place in his mouth, but he can't seem to speak it. "Won't say good-bye. Just... be seein' you. Because I will."

At first Chris turns to follow him out but Buck stands next to Vin, slapping him on the shoulder, joking about the ladies in Tascosa and whether they will let him find his way back to Four Corners. Chris can feel the heat of tears he refuses to shed burning behind his eyes, a sting in his throat, so he stays put at the bar. Cocks his head so he can hear what they're saying, but the noise drowns them out. From under his brow, looking in the corner of the mirror, he can just barely see Vin right before he reaches the swinging doors. Ezra's voice is sharp behind him, chastising someone. Buck is teasing Vin, and JD joins them to walk him out. There is too much, just too much; noise and confusion and busyness and it's too much. It should be him standing at Vin's side, joshing, caring. A friend.

It was Vin he saw when his eyes were closed. Vin who was the last one still standing when Chris entered the room, the first one by his side when trouble came. Vin who'd given him kindness before he asked.

Chris makes a pact with himself, right then. If Vin turns back to look at him before he leaves the saloon, Chris will give it all up, give up Fowler's trail and the hunt. Leave behind the world of ghosts and heartache he's lived in the past few years. _If._

He shoves the whiskey glass away and looks up into the mirror.

 


End file.
